EU network of mesocosms facilities for research on marine and freshwater ecosystems open for global collaboration.
Rivers, lakes, estuaries and the open ocean are connected and it’s becoming evident that ecosystem processes act on many scales, including global. Despite this, aquatic research is still divided in marine and freshwater sciences, with separate funding sources, and experimental science is often conducted at single sites without international coordination. To challenge these problems, the FvB-IGB-lead project AQUACOSM is funded by the first international call (EU H2020-INFRAIA) to coordinate research, develop common best practices and open both freshwater and marine large-scale research infrastructures (mesocosms) for international cross-discipline participation.